Well, I use SQLServer at work (not my choice --
the whole shop runs on MS products) and have
grown to like it...

When we upgraded from SQL Server
6.12 (?) to 7.0 about a year (?) ago,
the performance improvement was incredible
... we had been
considering buying a high speed specialized database (some sort star schema
kind of thing) for data mining projects (vs. our transactional normalized schemas)
...
but simply didn't need to after we upgraded to 7.0... very large multi-table million+ row joins and
aggregates running in near real time -- yes, many appropriate
indices, but still really impressive speed

I've heard MS is putting considerable resources into making
SQL Server fast stable and cheap -- and I think that when
MS decides to put a high priority on a category, they develop
really strong software....

When putting a smiley right before a closing parenthesis, do you:

Use two parentheses: (Like this: :) )
Use one parenthesis: (Like this: :)
Reverse direction of the smiley: (Like this: (: )
Use angle/square brackets instead of parentheses
Use C-style commenting to set the smiley off from the closing parenthesis
Make the smiley a dunce: (:>
I disapprove of emoticons
Other